Aliens, Angels, and Old Voices from the Earth

It was said almost in passing, and I’m pretty sure my head whipped around. A sitting Vice President of the United States, reflecting on UFOs/UAPs, stated that what people are encountering might not be extraterrestrial at all, but was instead, demonic. Part of me was shocked, not because I completely disagree, but because I’m old enough to remember when any politician bringing up aliens would have kissed his political career goodbye and might have even gotten himself a straitjacket.

And yet, in another way, his reference didn’t feel entirely bizarre. It landed somewhere deeper than shock, in that strange place where recognition lives. In my own search to understand the wide range of paranormal experiences reported across the world, I’ve come to suspect that ancient non-human intelligences, what we traditionally call angels and demons, may be part of the explanation, or at least part of the language we’ve lost.

Old Questions, New Language

As I often do when trying to make sense of something elusive, I looked backward rather than forward. I turned to the earliest traditions that shaped our understanding of unseen realities and the nature of existence itself. What I found was that long before telescopes and satellites, people were already looking up and encountering things they could not explain, experiences that disrupted the ordinary in ways that felt deeply real.

They saw lights that moved with intent, not by chance. They described beings that appeared and vanished, presences that seemed to observe as much as reveal. They spoke of voices that communicated without sound, impressions that arrived fully formed, and messages that lingered long after the encounter ended. They didn’t call them aliens. More often, they called them messengers. And in some cases, those messengers were not benevolent at all, but deceptive, even destructive.

We tend to think we are asking entirely new questions today, but more often we are simply renaming ancient ones. Our modern question, “Are we alone in the universe?” mirrors a much older question: “Who, or what, can cross the boundaries between realms?” The ancient world did not divide the material and the unseen the way we do now. To them, the sky was not empty space but a threshold, a veil, a place where dimensions overlapped. And sometimes, something slipped through.

The Known Intelligences

The earliest traditions describe a reality filled with intelligences, some aligned with the Creator’s order, others in rebellion, and still others whose origins are more difficult to trace. These beings were not abstract ideas or poetic metaphors. They were experienced, encountered, and remembered.

Angels, as they were understood, were not soft or symbolic. They were precise, powerful, and often unsettling. Their appearances disrupted the normal flow of life, redirected human paths, and then ended just as abruptly. They did not linger for curiosity or spectacle, and they were not interested in being studied or understood on human terms.

Ancient texts describe their capabilities without hesitation. They appear as human, yet not quite. They eat, speak, wrestle, and deliver messages that alter the course of history. They can bring healing or destruction, open what is sealed (like tombs), and break what seems unbreakable (like cities). Later thinkers like Thomas Aquinas suggested that these beings can influence perception itself, shaping what we see, hear, and experience, though always within limits set by the Creator, limits beyond our full understanding.

The Deceivers

Alongside these encounters, there are others that feel different, and the traditions treated them differently for a reason. These are often described as fallen angels: intelligences that turned away from their original assignments yet retained their awareness, agency, and ability to interact with our reality.

They are not chaotic or obvious. They are perceptive, deliberate, and capable of deeply real influence. They understand fear, perception, and human vulnerability. They can deceive, distort, and imitate, presenting themselves in ways that appear meaningful, even beautiful, at first glance. Ancient writings warn that some can even present themselves as beings of light, producing experiences that feel profound but lead toward confusion rather than clarity.

Early mystics wrote about these encounters with caution rather than dismissal. Anthony the Great described luminous presences that initially seemed wise and radiant, only to reveal distortion beneath the surface. His guidance was not to reject all encounters, but to test them carefully, recognizing that not everything that feels extraordinary is meant for our good.

The Wanderers

Then there are entities that may not neatly fit into the category of fallen beings. In older strands of thought, particularly in texts like 1 Enoch, these are described as something else entirely. They are said to be the disembodied remnants of the Nephilim, beings born from a crossing of boundaries that were never meant to be crossed.  While this view is not embraced by all mainstream Christian traditions, it did influence some early Christian writers, including those in the New Testament.  

According to this tradition, because these beings were neither fully human nor fully of the higher realms, their existence was unstable from the beginning. When they died, that instability did not resolve. Instead, what remained became restless, earthbound, and searching. These presences are described as wandering, dislocated, and often drawn toward influence or habitation. They are not anchored in the same way as other intelligences, and their nature carries a sense of incompleteness, even hunger, hunger they satisfy through possession of human or other material bodies.

Whether one takes this tradition literally or symbolically, it introduces a category of presence that is neither fully one thing nor another. It suggests that some encounters may involve intelligences that are not visitors from distant worlds, but remnants of something that unfolded here, long ago, in ways we no longer fully understand.

Could There Be Others?

Despite these known categories of non-human intelligence, the question of life beyond our world still lingers quietly at the edge of it all. Could there be actual extraterrestrial life as well? Could the universe harbor other forms of intelligence entirely separate from these ancient encounters?

Early thinkers did not speak in terms of aliens, but they did leave room for a vast and expansive creation. Augustine of Hippo reflected on the limits of human understanding regarding the scope of existence, while Thomas Aquinas emphasized that the creative power behind the universe is not confined to what we can perceive. Creation, in this sense, is not closed or finished. It is an expression of something far beyond us; it is the expression of the Creator himself.  

That openness has continued into the modern era. The Vatican Observatory and thinkers within the Catholic Church have acknowledged that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would not necessarily contradict belief in a Creator. Figures like Guy Consolmagno have even suggested that any intelligent life capable of relationship would exist within that same larger reality of creation.

At the same time, there is a consistent caution when interpreting encounters here. There are already long-standing frameworks for understanding intelligences that interact with humanity, and because of that, there is a reluctance to immediately attribute such experiences to beings from distant planets.

Patterns in the Encounters

And perhaps that caution is warranted. There is an overlap between what we describe as paranormal and what older traditions described as interactions with unseen intelligences. When you listen closely to modern accounts of alien encounters, without filtering them through science fiction or cultural expectation, certain patterns begin to emerge.

There is the paralysis, the awareness of a presence in the room, and the figure that is both seen and not seen. There is communication that bypasses language, impressions that arrive whole, and a lingering unease that resists explanation. In some cases, individuals have reported that invoking the name of Christ during these encounters caused them to end abruptly, a detail that aligns closely with older accounts of spiritual intrusion.

Remove the labels - alien, craft, abduction - and what remains does not feel purely technological. It feels experiential, relational, and deeply embedded in the fabric of human perception. It feels, in the deepest sense, like an encounter with something beyond us, but possibly not necessarily from where we think.

The Tension We Live In

So the tension remains. On one hand, a vast and possibly populated universe shaped by a creative force far beyond our comprehension. On the other hand, a long and sobering history of encounters with intelligences that are not human, not always benevolent, and not always what they seem.

And that brings us back to that offhand comment from Vice President Vance. It may have been an attempt to name something unsettling using familiar language, or it may reflect an older intuition surfacing again. But it also reveals something deeper about us. When faced with mystery, we reach for categories. We label. We simplify. We move on.

The problem is that some things refuse to be simplified. Some realities sit just beyond the edge of comprehension, revealing enough to be noticed but not enough to be contained. If the ancient voices were right about anything, it is this: we should be careful not to impose clear definitions on experiences that may not fall within the limits of human understanding.

Where That Leaves Us

Maybe we should stop asking whether these things exist and focus instead on what we are actually experiencing. It seems we should be far past the need to debate their reality. Humans have encountered them for as long as we have recorded anything. A more meaningful question might be: what exactly are we encountering when these moments occur?

It is tempting to collapse everything into a single explanation that we can name and manage. We can call them demons, aliens, hallucinations, messengers, angels, or visitors, and then move on as if the mystery has been resolved. But the ancient world resisted that kind of simplicity. It understood that reality is layered, that not all mysteries resolve cleanly, and that some experiences exist at the intersection of dimensions in ways we may never fully untangle.

So where does that leave us? Perhaps in a place that is both more grounded and more mysterious than we expected, more sacred and strange, if you will. It is entirely possible that the universe holds other forms of life beyond our reach or understanding. But it is also true that not every encounter with the unknown is what it seems.

The older traditions offer us something we have largely lost, not fear, but discernment. Instead of asking what something is, they ask what it does. Does it bring clarity or confusion? Peace or fear? Does it pull us toward truth, or away from it? Some presences illuminate. Others distort.

And maybe that is the quiet invitation here. Not to solve the mystery of the skies, but to become more attentive to the texture of our experiences. Perhaps we are meant to finally discover that everything that shines is not holy, but neither is everything unknown evil.  And somewhere between that fear and fascination lies wisdom.  

Grace and light to you all.